Acceptance: The First Law of Spirit

Just as there are laws of the physical universe such as Newton’s laws of gravitation and motion, there are five sequential rules that govern spiritual consciousness. They are acceptance, cooperation, understanding, loving, and enthusiasm. Each one is a doorway to the next. Our awareness of the presence of spirit in our lives is governed by these five laws. As we become able to comprehend and align ourselves with them, we gain access to the treasures they guard.

I think of spiritual consciousness as our ability to know our divine nature and to let that inform how we function in our lives. No matter what one’s beliefs are regarding God, spirituality, or religion, the laws of spirit represent a passageway to mental and emotional freedom. When we do not work in cooperation with these laws, our consciousness typically operates in a reactive mode to external conditions — perceiving ourselves to be victims or winners in the game of life.

The first law of spirit, or stepping stone along this path to freedom, is acceptance. Real acceptance is not for wimps, nor is it a wishy-washy passive way of making do with whatever is present. It is not a “whatever” attitude of resignation either. Acceptance is a conscious choice to drop all forms of resistance to whatever has come present in the moment and making the most of it. Acceptance isn’t about liking or approving of something. It is about letting life flow and unfold without getting in the way. It is about being receptive rather than exerting resistance to what comes present. Instead of focusing on the past or the future or wanting things to be different than they are, we open to what is true in the moment. This absence of “againstness” allows us to engage our reality in such a way that we can learn from it and strengthen our ability to function in this world.

For many of us, our first impulse is to resist something that we do not like that comes our way. Acceptance requires overriding this impulse and choosing to breathe into and through the experience, trusting that it has value that is for us and not against us. The truth of the matter is that resistance prolongs the negative experience, and acceptance allows for the possibility of changing our experiences by changing our attitudes.

Consider the bride who had her heart so set on having an outdoor wedding that she didn’t make a solid plan B in case of inclement weather. As her wedding day arrived, the storm clouds were rolling in and the forecast was not promising. She was the one who would make the final judgment call about whether or not to move the ceremony indoors. She woke up worrying about the weather, and was distracted by her concerns throughout the entire day leading up to her 6 p.m. ceremony. She missed out on all the available joy and excitement of spending her wedding day with her bridal party. She didn’t realize that while the impending storm was out of her control, the internal weather in her heart and mind was entirely up to her. Instead of deciding to play it safe and give her team time to set up the ceremony indoors, she waited until the very last minute. Finally, I went to encourage her to move the ceremony indoors. She was sitting there sobbing in her wedding dress, with makeup dripping down her stubborn face. Just then, the sky blackened and there was a torrential downpour. All the chairs were soaked, the guests ran for cover in a panic and the staff was out in the rain gathering the chairs, whisking them into the reception tent, toweling them dry while sliding over the wet and treacherous floor. Imagine how different this bride’s day would have been if she had been able to accept that she had no control over the weather.

Here are two things to watch out for next time you have preconceived notions about how you want things to be and then reality presents you with something very different:

  1. If you hold on to your desire, you create a mental and emotional tension between your desire and reality. The distance between the two will be connected by a stream of negative emotions. Alternatively, if you choose to accept reality, all that energy that would have been spinning around in negativity can be invested in figuring out how to make the best of your situation.
  2. As in the example of the bride described above, no amount of wishful thinking or attachment to a desired outcome makes it any more probable than it is. Consider only truly viable alternatives. If there is a 70 percent chance of rain, attaching yourself to the idea of sunshine merely sets you up for unhappiness and blinds you from seeing, appreciating, and investing in the real options that are available to you.

Ultimately, acceptance is about trusting yourself to rise to whatever occasion presents itself to you. It is about being open to ALL of life, knowing that it all has value whether you like it or not.

Here are two of my favorite quotes on the subject of acceptance:

The reason more of us are not spiritually aware people is that we often don’t or won’t accept what is happening. Acceptance is a flow of consciousness that continually moves on to the next thing.

So accept whatever comes your way, and don’t grumble against anything that happens to you. If it happens, it happens. Go on about your business. Keep flowing. You cannot control circumstances from the outside, so instead of resisting pain or failure and defending against it, you can embrace and encompass your pain and your failures, fully accepting them so that they become part of you.

You then can let them go because they are part of your inner environment — they are within your domain — and the loving of your Soul can dissolve them. — John-Roger

Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it … This will miraculously transform your whole life. — Eckhart Tolle

I look forward to your responses and reactions to this piece.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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3 Steps to Turning Pain Into Progress

Suffering is a valuable thing. Enjoy your life without rejecting problems or suffering…

The trick is knowing how to accept discomfort without being caught by it.

– Suzuki Rochi

One of the quickest ways to improve the quality of your mental and emotional experience is to learn how to effectively handle pain and suffering. The bad news is pain and suffering is a fact of life. From petty disturbances to major heartbreaks, we all get our fair share of life’s annoyances, disappointments and tragedies. The good news is that learning how to master these experiences can significantly improve your quality of life inside of yourself.

No matter how you respond to pain and suffering, you will get more. The goal is not to eliminate it, but to figure out how to use it as a stepping stone into something better. Since the days of the cavemen, humans have been hardwired to resist and pull away from pain — a great strategy to avoid getting eaten by a saber-tooth tiger. However, this autopilot response no longer serves us and needs to be rewired.

Nowadays, most of our suffering occurs in response to the frustrations and disappointments of everyday life, like standing in long lines, being caught in traffic or not getting the promotion you wanted. The scale of our mental and emotional suffering can escalate to being the victim of starvation, violence or terrorism. However, most of us don’t experience that. The height of our suffering might be heartbreak over the end of a marriage or the death of a loved one.

Consider what happens when you automatically respond to negativity with resistance. It’s like duct taping yourself to the source of irritation. What you resist persists because you are focusing upon it and thus giving it your attention and energy — you are fueling the fire. This is equally true whether you are escalating your irritation over a traffic jam or caught in endless sorrow over the loss of a loved one. In both cases, you are attaching yourself to the source of your distress and not integrating the experience. I am not suggesting that one should “get over it” when a loved one dies. Grief has a natural life of its own. However, sometimes people are unable to move on.

There are three steps to mastering your experiences of pain and suffering. The first is to notice what your instinctive response is when negativity comes up inside of us. Rather than focusing on the source of your distress, pay attention to your response to it. Do you try to dissipate the energy by exploding — for example, blaming and judging others? Or do you implode? Do you silently suffer as you stuff the distress back down inside of yourself through addictive behaviors like compulsive eating, or drinking or spending? Pay attention. Observe your own pattern of response.

The second step is to breathe into the experience of pain and suffering. Build your tolerance so you can stay present in the moment. This will give you the opportunity to buy a little time to make different choices. Instead of unconsciously doing what you have always done, study your patterns, lean into them, get intimately familiar with the sequence of events that cause a minor disturbance to escalate into a learned response and then a repetitive pattern and so on. How do you do it? How do you go from being just fine to being in a rage or falling into a depression? Does your energy cycle up and out or in and down?

The third thing is to do something different. You might wonder why not just do that first? The reason is that the first two steps are what create your willingness and ability to change your behavior. You have to first know where you are and that you don’t want to stay there before you are going to effectively and creatively find and build other responses to the negativity in your life. You need to develop response strategies that lift you up rather than swirling you into a rage or a downward spiral.

Let’s use the example of being stuck in traffic. Some people have so little control over their mental and emotional behavior that they allow this irritation to escalate into road rage. It goes something like this: “Not this again. I’m sick and tired of this. I wish these people would just get out of my way. Look at that idiot.” And so on. The energy spins and feeds on itself and the driver probably experiences an elevation of blood pressure. Here’s the alternative:

Step One — Notice Your Response: “Whoops, here I go again. I hate this traffic.”

Step Two — Lean Into Your Experience: “Every day it’s the same thing. As soon as I get to Route 92, I’m in for at least a 20 minute delay and I get hot under the collar. It shouldn’t be this way. I don’t like this. I feel trapped.”

Step Three — Do Something Different: “When I get home, I’m going to see if I can find another route home. For now, I’m going to think about where I would like to go for vacation this year. Let’s see … Tuscany? The Bahamas?”

This three step process may be a little less obvious with an experience that spreads out over time like the loss of a loved one. However, it works the same way. In order to change your response, you must first notice what your pattern of response actually is, then breathe into it and really take ownership of what you are doing. Finally, intentionally try something different.

With practice, you will find yourself mastering the art of recovering faster with less drainage of your energy and less creation of negativity. See how fast you can get back in balance with yourself. This is not a game of pretending nothing ever happened. Rather, it is a matter of developing the art of recovery.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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8 Guidelines for Communicating With Doctors

When going to a doctor’s appointment, just showing up is not enough. There are things you can do to support yourself in getting maximum value from the visit. Many people see doctors as experts who are going to fix them and therefore give over all sense of personal responsibility, waiting to be told what to do. The optimum visit is a dialogue between two experts — don’t forget that you are the expert at living in your body!

Here are guidelines for creating more productive visits with doctors.

1. Be Clear About Your Reasons For Seeing The Doctor When Making The Appointment: They need to know the severity and urgency of your complaint to determine when to schedule the appointment and how much time to allow. What you might dismiss as minor may be a red flag of a potentially serious problem. Conversely, something causing you serious discomfort may require time to heal rather than medical intervention and therefore not be seen as urgent by the doctor.

2. Come Prepared And On Time: It’s a great idea to maintain a notebook or computer file where you keep track of your medical history. Then, when you come to the doctor, bring an up-to-date copy of your medical history and a list of your medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) and any natural remedies, treatments or other therapies you are using. If you are seeing other doctors/health practitioners about your symptoms/diagnosis, be sure to bring relevant materials from them as well as your own notes. Consider typing up a list of your questions and concerns for the doctor to help insure that all your needs are addressed. Be sure to leave space on your list to take notes during the appointment including keeping track of follow-up actions.

Many doctors chronically run late for their appointments. Arrive on time anyway in the event that they are running on schedule. If the doctor is late, consider the fact that it is probably because someone else is getting the help they need. Bring your own reading material and carry it with you throughout your appointment. If you work yourself up into a tizzy over the delay, you are likely to be less effective getting your own needs met during your appointment.

3. Be Specific And Factual About Your Concerns/Symptoms: Prioritize your concerns and share them with your doctor at the beginning of your appointment. Ask to address what concerns you most first. If reporting a new problem, describe the frequency, duration, location and severity of your symptoms as well as what makes it better or worse, any treatments you have tried so far and with what response. Also mention any relevant family history.

4. Get Right To The Point: Don’t beat around the bush. Stay focused on the issue at hand. Try not to ramble or go off topic or to get too emotional if you can help it. If you have a friendly rapport with your doctor, handle your business first and then you can chit chat later if time permits.

5. Be Assertive And Ask For What You Want And Need: Sometimes doctors forget their manners, aren’t listening to you or answering your questions to your satisfaction. Let them know how they are failing to meet your needs. You are paying for their time and deserve their undivided attention. If the doctor seems distracted or is rushing you, express your concern in a positive way. For example, you might say, “I know you are busy, but I really need you to help me understand what is going on with my body.” Getting mad usually doesn’t help — but giving honest and clear feedback usually does.

6. Ask For Further Explanation If You Disagree Or Don’t Understand: Your job is to give the doctor information and feedback. So, do that. Let them know if you don’t follow what they are saying or have a different point of view that you want them to consider. Remember this is a dialogue between two experts.

7. If You Want Your Doctor’s Opinion About A New Drug Or Procedure You Heard About, Ask How It Applies To You: You may not like or agree with your doctor’s point of view but should certainly take it into account in any decisions you make. You can always ask for more of an explanation or consult other doctors, but at some point you need to make an informed decision.

8. Summarize And Be Sure You Understand The Follow-up Prescribed: Columbia University women’s health expert Marianne Legato, MD, suggests you leave the appointment with an understanding of why the doctor thinks you have the symptoms or condition you are experiencing; what lab tests he or she is ordering and why, the doctor’s plan for contacting you about the results and a plan for easing your symptoms. Don’t leave with unanswered questions or confusion. Make sure that you have captured everything in your notes.

Remember, doctors are experts we consult about our health, but ultimately we are left to make our own decisions about what advice, prescriptions and protocols we follow and which we don’t. Take good care of yourself.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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Paying Mind to Selective Attention

Did you ever notice how some things really grab your attention but not the attention of others? Or how you edit out the background noise in a bustling restaurant when you want to hear what someone at your table is saying? That’s selective attention. Both consciously and unconsciously, we edit our environment and pay attention to some things while ignoring others. With the increasing bombardment of stimuli we deal with each day, this capability becomes more and more important to us to sort out what matters to us and what doesn’t. On the other hand, sometimes we edit out very important and useful information.

I thought of this the other day when I saw a chipmunk determined to cross the road. In front of him were four busy lanes of traffic and a huge parking lot. Behind him was an enormous lush field. What was he thinking? What did he imagine was more desirable in the road and parking lot than in the field? I still wonder what happened to that chipmunk.

This got me thinking. How often do I do that to myself? How often do I set my mind on doing, being or having something and ignore all other possibilities that might help me make a more informed decision? Just because I think something, doesn’t make it so, nor is it necessarily a good idea.

It’s very easy to assume our point of view is a perfect match to reality. Unfortunately, anyone with a different opinion or any conflicting information available to us gets either rejected or ignored because it doesn’t fit our picture. This process of selective attention operates both automatically and consciously, but doesn’t always serve our best interest — like the chipmunk above.

Experts in the field of psychology and psychiatry hotly debate the question of how and why we select to pay attention to some things and not others. They also disagree about the degree to which this editing process is conscious. Typically, we filter out what we deem to be unnecessary or unimportant without being aware of the fact that we are exercising this filtering process. As a result, what we think is not necessarily so. It is simply a result of our beliefs, prior experiences, the arousal of our senses and other factors that play a role in our editing function.

Extreme problems with the selective attention function are evident in individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who have difficulty focusing their attention, while those with Autism flood their senses by paying attention to too much at once. Then there are the rest of us. Consider, for example, teenagers who selectively do not pay attention to parents who repeatedly try to get them to do their chores. Or, the woman who ignores the warning signs of abuse from her partner because she doesn’t want that to be true. Or the endless party politics where each side tries to outshout the other with their talking points, never really listening to opposing views.

The advertising industry is built on selective attention. Look at my product! Look at this beautiful model and buy into the illusion that you too will look this great if you buy my product!

In observing my own behavior, I notice that my selective attention really supports me well when I am writing and able to edit out all distractions except my cats — but they delight me so I don’t want to change that. I notice I am very task-oriented. When I choose to do something, I focus my attention on it and get it done. On the other hand, sometimes my attention is non-selective. For example, during meditation when I have difficulty shutting off my mind. Also, when I go shopping, I don’t always selectively attend to my shopping list. I give myself too much freedom to be distracted and seduced by non-essential purchases.

Selective attention, while often unconscious, is a powerful tool when exercised consciously. It can work for us or against us depending on the situation. Here are some suggestions about how to hone your selective attention skills so that you can use them more to your advantage:

Do a selective attention audit on yourself:

  • When do you see selective attention working for you and when does it get in your way?
  • Notice how often you choose to ignore warning signs or negative implications and why.
  • Notice when you are talking with someone, whether you focus your attention on the conversation, zone out or divert your attention elsewhere.
  • When multi-tasking are you aware of where you are placing your attention or is it simply fragmented?
  • When making a purchase do you make it a point to look at both the pros and the cons or just talk yourself into the purchase by only focusing on the positives?
  • Who do you choose to listen to and who do you choose to ignore and why?
  • Do you notice any differences between how you pay attention to people and things that you like versus those you don’t?

Practice using your selective attention to better advantage:

  • Choose one area of your life where you tend to get distracted and practice intentionally holding your focus where you want it to be.
  • Observe yourself in an area where selective attention works for you and notice how you do that. Then see where you can apply that elsewhere in your life.

We are selectively focusing our attention all the time. The real question is how aware of it are we? The more conscious we are of this process, the more opportunities we have to direct our attention to our advantage.

I welcome your comments.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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How to Suppress Your Inner Tyrant

One of the biggest challenges to our sense of well-being is uncertainty about whether or not we are good enough. Many of us falsely assume that the fulfillment of our dreams for a promotion, love, weight loss or writing a best-seller is attributable to our level of worthiness. But one’s essential worthiness has nothing to do with it. Whether we ever come to know and honor our totally magnificent selves is a better question than are we worthy. We are multi-dimensional beings in a very complex world and many of us spend a lifetime coming to the awareness that each of us was born worthy of being loved, experiencing success and being happy. The catch is we have to learn how to remove whatever is in the way of us knowing that is so.

To equate success or failure in the world with our own innate worthiness or lack thereof is not only illogical but dangerous. We get into trouble when we hold ourselves up to a standard of “good enough” that we carry inside us but never seem to be able to achieve and sustain. Alternatively, some of us worship an abstract, external standard that doesn’t really take our personal reality into account. Furthermore, we are bombarded with images of “beautiful people” who are professionally styled, made up and air-brushed — even they don’t really look like that!

Many great athletes have learned that ultimately they compete against themselves rather than against opponents. Life has taught me to require of myself that I do my very best as often as possible and to be very pleased with myself for that. This is a much more gentle way of relating to myself than the many years I spent living with a nagging voice inside my head who ran incessant negative feedback. Do you have one of those? I call them inner tyrants. I have learned that success is about reclaiming authority over my mind from my inner tyrant. It is about doing my best and striving for excellence — not perfection.

The process of learning to drop false standards of perfection by silencing our inner tyrants allows us to embrace ourselves as we are, trusting that we are doing the best we can. It is about becoming better friends to ourselves and is an ongoing journey that involves several key steps:

1. Pay attention to what is going on inside of your head. Notice that when you are being hard on yourself it is usually a red flag that you are getting in the way of creating, promoting or allowing what you want to come forward.

2. Take responsibility for what you are saying to yourself. Notice when you are being unkind to yourself, and stop as soon as possible. Don’t make yourself wrong for beating up on yourself, simply stop the behavior, forgive yourself and move on.

3. Silence your inner tyrant. There are two key strategies here. First, stop feeding the negativity and second insert a more positive view of yourself and your efforts. If a battle ensues as your tyrant seeks to reassert control over your mind, develop your skills as a worthy opponent.

4. Turn the process into a game. Little by little, each time this challenge of your inner tyrant asserts itself, go into this process and turn it into a game of doing more of what works for you and less of what doesn’t.

Whenever I work with a client who is struggling with an inner tyrant, I share the following poem by Portia Nelson which does a great job of describing the process of freeing ourselves from inner negativity.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in, again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit… but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

Doing the very best I can has become my new definition of “good enough.” I have also evolved a great response to my inner tyrant whenever she tests me or when I am having a really hard time understanding why some aspect of my life does not seem to be working out very well. It is simply this: “I am doing the best I can and this is what it looks like!” A little humor, compassion and kindness for ourselves yield far better results than pushing ourselves around forever striving to be good enough to get our own approval or that of others. Just do your best and be proud of yourself.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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The Two Caveats in the Golden Rule

Many languages and cultures carry the same wisdom: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” One would think that is always good advice. However, there are two fundamental assumptions in The Golden Rule that require a note of caution in its application.

Consider the following situation. Several years ago, I was working with a client who was in an abusive marriage. She was very clear that she wanted to leave her husband and needed to do so. But, she just couldn’t do it. When we explored why, it turned out to be attributable to her deep belief in The Golden Rule. Her interpretation was that her husband was unemployed, fairly unemployable and generally down on his luck and if she was in his shoes, she certainly would not want her spouse to leave her. While enormously compassionate, she was still being abused.

Her literal interpretation of The Golden Rule blocked her from seeing the full picture of what was going on. The reality was that if she was in her husband’s position, she would not behave as he was behaving. He was one of those downright nasty people who took pleasure from manipulating and hurting other people and making his life challenges other people’s problems. Somehow, it gave him a sense of being superior.

The first caveat to The Golden Rule is that it must be applied to one’s self first and then to others. In other words, do onto yourself as you would have others do onto you. If you extend your loving kindness to others at your own expense, then you become your own abuser. Put another way, if there is a conflict between treating yourself and the other person with loving kindness, it is wise to take care of yourself first so that you can come from a position of strength and balance in being of service to others.

I learned this wisdom when I was ordained. The charge of my ministry was to first minister to myself, not in a selfish way, but rather as a loving parent tends to the needs of a child. The ministry then extends to others. It took me many years to appreciate the wisdom of making sure I was maintaining my own health and balance so that I could relate to others in a more loving way without doing so at my own expense.

Here’s how the first caveat applied to my client. She was so focused on how she was treating her husband that she neglected to look at how she was behaving towards herself. She was allowing herself to be abused continuously. When I shared the first caveat with her, she recognized that she was allowing herself to be abused by ignoring her responsibility to herself and focusing only on how she would feel in her husband’s shoes — completely unaware of the fact that she would never behave as he did. Just as repeatedly burning your hand by placing it over a flame is unwise, so is opening the door to repeated abuse.

The second caveat is the assumption that you are dealing with a healthy person of integrity. Sometimes you are not. When someone is in such an unhealthy place in their consciousness as to be repeatedly abusive to others, the most loving response for one’s self and the abuser is often to leave or refuse to engage in an adversarial response. This refusal to support the abuser in his or her weakness can be the wakeup call needed. Our most loving behavior is often to refuse to tolerate abuse.

The bottom line is that we all want to be loved by each other, but sometimes we lose sight of that and treat one another in terrible ways. The way I interpret The Golden Rule is not that we are supposed to turn the other cheek by inviting more abuse, but rather serving one another by example. Figuratively, we can turn the other cheek by not responding to aggression with aggression but with what we truly believe is for the highest good of all concerned. For example, when my client left her husband she wrote him a long and loving letter in which she affirmed her love for him, wished him well, encouraged him to get help and made it perfectly clear that the marriage was over and that it was time for her to look after her own health and well-being.

For me, the message of The Golden Rule is to treat each other with loving kindness. Sometimes this means demonstrating our unwillingness to meet aggression with aggression by choosing not to participate in what others are dishing out.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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The Power of Bearing Witness

There are times in life when the highest honor, the greatest love is paid to another by simply bearing witness to his or her experience. Bearing witness is largely nonverbal. It is the choice to give the gift of a pure expression of love and respect — being a compassionate observer to the unfolding of another person’s life or a particular moment or event. In a really good marriage, two people bear witness to the fullness of one another’s life experiences — in good times and bad.

When we bear witness, we lovingly give our attention to the other without judgment. We comfort without smothering. We play a supporting role — powerfully upholding the other starring in his or her life. It is not about us. It is about them. Yet, we make a profound decision when we do not try to fix their pain and suffering or share in their experience by telling how we had a similar experience. Bearing witness says, “You are not alone. I see you. I witness what you are experiencing. What you are experiencing matters to me. I surround you with my love.”

As a life coach and grief counselor, one of the primary things I do for my clients is to simply provide a safe space for them to speak their truth — to reveal what they think and feel about their own life. So much of our lives are spent with hidden truths because there is no time or because we don’t want to be a burden or to be judged, or do not feel safe to share. So, we keep our truth to ourselves and often feel very alone as a result. When we allow another to bear witness to us, we give ourselves the freedom to be known. Somehow, it’s like having your passport stamped to say that you went to this country or that. Having someone bear witness to your reality behind all the social masks we wear is a profound form of validation.

When someone we love is hurting or dying, it is easy to feel helpless and to want to somehow end the suffering by fixing the situation. Alternatively, some of us unload our own fears, telling the one whose suffering has provoked our fears how upset and afraid we are about what is happening to them. This can cause added stress and put them in the position of trying to comfort us when they are the ones in need of our comfort. These are often the times that call us to a higher response — to simply bear witness to another person’s life journey — not to engage in it, but to stand beside them in loving support. The focus is not to make the pain go away, but rather to let that person know that they are not alone and that we trust them to do whatever it is they need to do to go through that particular experience. Sometimes, this is best done in silence.

One of the very best examples I have ever seen of the profound support we can offer to each other through bearing witness is the final chapter of “Not Like My Mother” by Irene Tomkinson. I had the privilege of meeting Irene this past weekend and having her read this chapter to me. It shares the inner experience of a mother sitting beside her daughter in a doctor’s waiting room. The daughter has come to have a clinical abortion of the deceased fetus in her womb.

I am currently in the process of bearing witness to my dear friend Roy who had colon cancer surgery about a year ago and has been under hospice care ever since. He has been one of my greatest teachers of the wisdom of life. He doesn’t judge others for making choices that he wouldn’t make. He simply says, “it’s different.” He doesn’t seem to judge his failing health either. He is going along for the ride in full cooperation. I visit Roy once or twice a week and at first I kept trying to figure out what my role was. Other than his family, caregivers and hospice team, I think I am his only visitor. I became aware of the fact that I was ill at ease at first — I didn’t know what to do. I tried too hard to put a smile on his face, to share memories with him, to entertain him. It was a relief for me when he wanted me to read to him because at least I had something specific and tangible I could do. Eventually, I learned how to just be with him. The act of showing up, looking in his eyes and stroking his head or holding his hand is how I bear witness to him. Sometimes I just sit and silently pray for him while he sleeps. I think that is the best thing I can do for him. I learned to get myself out of the way. I am bearing witness to the end of his life. Sometimes just showing up says it all.

For those of you who struggle with going to see a sick or dying friend or relative because you just don’t know what to say or do, try just showing up and bearing witness. Often, it is our own discomfort and the feeling of helplessness that we are avoiding by not going into these situations. Sometimes we forget that our job is not to fix the situation at hand, but rather to help lift the burden of the other person by letting them know we care enough to show up. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, it is important that we show up for each other.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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What One Change Would You Make in the World?

I’m sure I am not the only one who plays the game “if I were king or queen.” We all have ideas about how things shoulda, coulda, woulda been better if only the powers that be would do what we think they should. I’d like to share my personal favorite and invite you to share yours as well.

If I were queen, I would focus my efforts on what I think is the deepest tap root of so many of our social problems. It’s simply this: an awful lot of people are mentally and emotionally dysfunctional and, as a result, their lives are askew. They are inclined to generate a great deal of negativity into their own lives, relationships and the world we share.

I can argue that this is the way it is meant to be in the larger scheme of things — in the spiritual evolution of humanity. It’s their karma and all that. After all, we do seem to gain more wisdom through adversity — so this is indeed fertile ground. But, the businesswoman and visionary in me agree that we could yield a huge return on investment as a society in this area with very little effort. I think the cost of dramatically improving the mental health and emotional intelligence of people would be a mere pittance compared to the price we are currently paying for the consequences of its lack of further development.

Consider how much of our human capital is lost due to people being rendered less productive because they are stressed out. Many are consumed by worries over money, work and relationships. They are being pulled in too many directions at once or simply never having enough hours in the day to keep afloat. In the absence of sufficient mental health strategies and coping mechanisms, people tend to get swallowed up by stress. Many fall into a downward spiral that leads to addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, etc. to mask the feelings and situations with which they cannot cope. Add to this the number of people caught in the perils of poverty – many receiving inferior nutrition, education and life improvement opportunities who resign themselves to a hand-to-mouth existence of rage and hopelessness.

Now, just imagine if I were queen! What would it be like to live in a world where most people were clear-headed and had a sense of personal accountability and social responsibility? Envision a world with far less depression, stress, addiction, frustration and anger. Imagine if we actually made it a social priority to foster mental and emotional health as an investment in the quality of our individual and collective lives.

Couldn’t it be amazing if we actually taught our children how to think, rather than only what to think — if we taught them how to cooperate rather than just to compete where someone always has to be the loser. If I were queen, I would assist children in developing their mental and emotional health, rather than focusing on their coolness quotient. I would make it a priority to identify those who needed assistance and help them to create a strong sense of self worth, integrity, pride in their capabilities and dreams of a healthy and productive future.

If I were queen, I would remove the stigma and financial limitations from seeking mental and emotional assistance. I would make it normal to get help as needed and let people know they were smart to seek help. There would be sufficient creative and financial resources to fund programs to upgrade the state of mental and emotional health and human consciousness. There would be a greater value placed on integrity and human dignity which would serve as the fulcrum that delicately balances and unifies concerns regarding personal and collective well being.

If I were queen, I would establish a baseline of educational achievement in mental health and emotional intelligence that would be a normal and essential part of our education system. I would want people to understand the power of their minds and emotions and how to use them effectively. For example, I would foster understanding of the new field of biology called epigenetics that explores how our consciousness controls our health, well being, and even our DNA. I would want people to understand that their beliefs magnetically and selectively attract what is compatible with their thinking into their lives — that we quite literally create, promote and allow what is in our lives. Thus, if we do what we have always done, we continue to attract and create what we have always attracted and created in the past. It’s like planting seeds — you don’t grow roses from sunflower seeds.

It is easy to see why those in positions of power in our world, countries and personal lives might want us to stay as dysfunctional as we are to support them in maintaining their power bases — but I don’t see much wisdom in that choice. I simply can’t help but wonder what kind of wonderful world we could create if we truly supported the idea of mental and emotional health and well-being for all people. If we were empowered to create and maintain healthy inner environments, what would be the likely impact on our outer environments, personal relationships, social interactions and productivity?

Ahhh, if only I were queen! So, until my coronation, consider this: each of us is king or queen of our own little world and we get to decide what to create, promote or allow in our personal kingdoms. So, here are my questions for you:

  • What are you creating, promoting or allowing in your kingdom?
  • If you were king or queen of the world and could make one change, what would you choose and why?
  • What do you think of my choice to change mental and emotional health?
  • Was there anything in this post that you would like me to expand upon?

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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Love with a Capital ‘L’: Recognizing the Divine Through Another

Many believe that the highest expression and experience we can attain in life is to love one another. Yet love is highly misunderstood. There is great confusion about the causation of love and the ways in which we are one and those that separate us.

When we “fall in love” with someone, it is often experienced as an instant affection for them — almost a chemical occurrence. One minute it didn’t exist, and the next it seems to exist more than anything else. It is delicious and we want more, so we focus more and more of our attention on this one person and want them to do more and more of whatever we think caused us to have this experience. What we commonly refer to as “love,” whether as lovers, parent and child, or friends, is really a very spiritual experience that we mistakenly delimit to our relationship with the person with whom we are having this experience. In fact, love is the human experience of the divine. As John-Roger explains it:

As we are looking for ourselves, we often see ourselves in others who are open to reflect. We then love them, not just for who they are, but for that reflection of our love in them. What we’re really saying is, “When I’m with you, that place inside of me that is loving awakens.”

When this kind of love is experienced between two people, four things are happening simultaneously. Each is choosing to give love to the other, and each is choosing to receive love from the other. We are both open to the flow of giving and receiving love. At its best, when none of these four actions is blocked by self-imposed limitations, whether with one’s partner or a total stranger, there is a transcendent experience into a oneness that is beyond earthly concerns. Consider the awe when a parent first looks into the eyes of his or her newborn child, or when in “Avatar” the Na’vi say, “I see you,” meaning, “I see the god in you.”

When we don’t realize that love is a recognition of the divine through another, we falsely attribute the source of love simply to that person. We might fixate on wanting more of that person when in fact what we really want is more experiences of transcendence, of God. Attributing the source of love to the other person is simply a misunderstanding of the causation. When we limit ourselves to looking only for romantic love, we miss the point.

Building upon that misunderstanding of the true nature of love, we zero in on that one person and attempt to stimulate those loving feelings. We develop a conscious and often unconscious agenda of wanting them to behave in ways that we believe are the cause of our transcendent experience. When we take this path, our love often becomes exclusionary and conditioned by our personal preferences and prejudices. Our love flows exclusively with this person but not with others, and we tend to trap each other in a web of expectations. When we look for love on websites, we want our prospective partner to be of a certain age, to have a certain body type and to share our likes and dislikes — all the things that we think will bring us to that transcendent experience. We think that if they are a match, they will be capable of igniting those feelings in us.

Truly loving another person with a capital “L” is a matter of freeing the other person of the responsibility to express his or her love for us only in the ways that we want to receive it. When we truly love, we get out of our own way by dropping all the concerns of our ego and allowing the pure radiance of the divine to shine through us to another. When the other person does that as well, the result is a pure and blissful experience of our own divinity reflected through another into a shared oneness.

I think we should all strive to be ambassadors of love with a capital “L” with as many people as possible, through our willingness to smile at a complete stranger as an offer of momentary transcendence as we pass each other by on the street; by calling to be of service to a friend who is facing a difficult time; and by choosing to sacrifice our petty judgments, expectations and any other ways that we have learned to withhold our loving kindness from others each day. It is a practice of becoming a safe and neutral place in which both our humanity and our divinity can dwell. It is through these actions that the place inside us that is loving awakens.

Perhaps this is truly what is meant in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We experience God’s presence in the context of our everyday relationships with others. It is a reflective process. When we delight in another, what is actually happening is we are having a pure experience of oneness that transcends all our judgments and our demands that another person be how we want them to be. We have raised our consciousness up above earthly considerations, and that is indeed a divine experience.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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The Distinction Between Observation and Judgment

We observe something when we become aware of it. We acknowledge “this is so.” We judge when we form an opinion, as in “I think this about that.” Observation is a neutral act of taking in information upon which we base our responses. Judgment involves rendering an opinion regarding the relative value or merit of what is being observed. We get into dicey territory when we start judging each other for three reasons:

  • As self-appointed judges, we separate ourselves from the other person. Blinded by our own judgment, we label them with our verdicts. Seeing only with our minds, we shut our hearts to them. As Mother Teresa said, “if you judge people, you have no time to love them.” And, as Carl Jung said, “we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.”
  • Judgments are proclamations of polarized thinking and whether or not others buy into our judgments, we usually become vested in them. We often confuse our judgments with reality as in “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”
  • It is important to remember that we are limited in our understanding of another person’s life by our own range of experience. As the proverb goes, “don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.”

I had an experience recently that inspired this article. I was with a group of people and found myself rather ill at ease. The person who seemed to be setting the tone of the gathering repeatedly made choices other than those that would have been my preference. Suddenly, I became aware of how I was not simply observing this, but was making her wrong in the theater of my mind and essentially blaming her for my sense of separation. Everything was her fault from my point of view.

As I became increasingly irritated, I finally had the awareness that I was the one who was creating my sense of separation and justifying it with my judgments of this woman. This understanding opened up new possibilities for me. I began to pay closer attention to my judgments and each time I caught myself in the act, I quickly rephrased my judgment into a neutral statement of personal preference inside my mind. Energetically, this meant I was not making her wrong, but simply noticing that I was experiencing irritation by comparing her choice to my own preference. I did all that in my mind.

It then occurred to me that I was creating disharmony within myself and had the option of choosing to be more loving and peaceful instead. So, I started making that choice. Instead of seeing only what irritated me, I looked more deeply and was able to see the goodness in this woman as well. Before I knew it, I had shifted my attention to where it belonged — to affirming my intention of being more loving and peaceful and finding ways to do that rather than separating myself through my judgments. Soon, I was focusing on how grateful I was for this lesson in the distinction between observation and judgment.

Then, as I was leaving, this woman extended a kindness to me that reminded me that there are many ways to express our loving and it behooves us to be open to them all, rather than judging and rejecting those that do not resemble our own way of doing things. As Carl Jung said, “everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Sometimes we meet people who simply do not know how else to relate to us than through judgment. Some behave this way with all people, others with only certain people as though they are allergic to them. I have experienced this with a relative who has disapproved of me all my life. As a child, I always felt rejected by her, and, as children do, I stood on my head trying to get her approval. I also fell into the trap of judging her in response to her criticisms of me.

As I matured, I tried to reason with her in an attempt to heal our relationship, but she was not interested in that. In time, I became aware of the fact that her judgment of me not only affected our relationship, but it colored all relationships in our family. Finally, I saw that there were always three people in the room when we were together — me, her and the figment of her imagination that she called by my name. That awareness became my path to freedom. I realized that she was as trapped in her judgment of me as I was. The difference was that I could get out of it and she was not yet able to do so.

As a grown woman, I finally saw that our relationship was a clear manifestation of Einstein’s definition of insanity — “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” My liberation came when I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. Recognizing that her judgment of me was none of my business, but that my own well-being was my responsibility, I chose to end all contact with her. As a result, my life is far more peaceful. When I think of her now, I do not allow myself to judge her. I pray for her and wish her well from afar while going about my own business of holding myself accountable for my inner and outer life and for my contribution to the quality of the relationships in my life.

We can never judge the lives of others,
because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path,
but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.
(Paulo Coelho)

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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